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Abstract The Dutch missiologists J.H. Bavinck (1895-1954) has become well-known for his far-sighted view of human religious consciousness. Bavinck believed that the religious impulse of mankind would not disappear, not even with increasing secularity in the West. In this article it is asked to what extent Bavinck’s view of religiosity is still of use in a missiological approach of the most secularized part of the world, Europe. Its conclusion is that Bavinck’s essentially psychological view did not take the cultural nature of religion sufficiently into account, and therefore the possibility that it will disappear. Therefore, a more realistic view of religious consciousness than Bavinck’s is needed in a missiology of Europe.

Abstract The Dutch missiologists J.H. Bavinck (1895-1954) has become well-known for his far-sighted view of human religious consciousness. Bavinck believed that the religious impulse of mankind would not disappear, not even with increasing secularity in the West. In this article it is asked to what extent Bavinck’s view of religiosity is still of use in a missiological approach of the most secularized part of the world, Europe. Its conclusion is that Bavinck’s essentially psychological view did not take the cultural nature of religion sufficiently into account, and therefore the possibility that it will disappear. Therefore, a more realistic view of religious consciousness than Bavinck’s is needed in a missiology of Europe.

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Religious Consciousness in a Post-Christian Culture: J.H. Bavinck’s (1949), Sixty Years Later